PERFORMERS: LEON ERROL

Born: July 3 1881
Died: October 12 1951

by PETER TATCHELL (copyright 2011)

Long before Barry Humphries and Paul Hogan began invading the stages and movie screens of the world, Australia’s first internationally-acclaimed comedian was the toast of Broadway and later, Hollywood. He was a rubber-legged funnyman named Leon Errol.

Born in Sydney in 1881, Leon originally planned to become a doctor but taking part in amateur theatrics while at university enticed him to change his career path dramatically. As the 20th century dawned the increasingly versatile performer built up an act touring the stages of Australia and New Zealand, at times working in a circus as clown, animal trainer and bareback rider and later even appearing in Shakespeare with a repertory company.

In 1905 he crossed the Pacific and got a job in a San Francisco beer hall, wowing the patrons with his eccentric dancing and pantomime skills. It wasn’t long before Leon was managing a burlesque troupe travelling throughout the U.S. west coast (and on occasion coaching a young Fatty Arbuckle) but the famous 1906 earthquake caused him to head to the safer environs in the mid-west and eventually across the country to New York.

His big break came when Florenz Ziegfeld signed Errol for the 1911 edition of his annual Follies. Joining with popular Bert Williams in one celebrated sketch, Leon’s performance as a drunken major all but stopped the show. It was the start of a twenty year career on the Broadway stage as Leon Errol became one of top names on the famous thoroughfare.

The comedian became a regular in the following four Ziegfeld Follies, and along the way also starred in other productions for the famous producer … A Winsome Widow (1912), The Century Girl (1916) and the Midnight Revue – Dance and Grow Thin (1917). He also headlined two editions of Hitchy-Koo in 1917 and 1918 and crossed the Atlantic in 1919 to appear at the London Hippodrome in a production called Joy Belle.

On his return to America, Errol spent a couple of years in vaudeville and topped the bill at the Palace before Ziegfeld lured him back with a major role in the Jerome Kern musical extravaganza Sally (with Marilyn Miller).

By the 1920s, the movie makers of Hollywood were competing with “flesh and blood” theatre for audiences and Leon (who’d already made a 2-reeler in 1916 called Nearly Spliced) was signed for a handful of features during the heyday of the silent film. One of them was an adaptation of Sally (also starring Marilyn Miller) in 1925.

Then it was back to the footlights for Ziegfeld’s Louie the 14th (the national tour of which was interrupted when Errol managed to break both ankles during an acrobatic comedy routine on parallel bars), Yours Truly (1927) and Fioretta (1929) which saw him reunited with another Follies star, Fanny Brice.

Soon after, all of show business was caught up in the financial mess that culminated in the Wall Street crash of October 1929. Like many other top names, Leon Errol deserted Broadway and headed to Hollywood for the start of his second career … in the new-fangled talkies.

Leon began with a major role in Paramount’s all-star Paramount on Parade (as one of the M.C.’s and in a sketch). The studio then starred him in a number of features and 2-reelers until the mid-30s, notably with Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman and Burns & Allen in We’re Not Dressing. During this period Errol also worked for Warners (Her Majesty Love, with Ziegfeld stars W.C. Fields and Marilyn Miller) and at Columbia and Universal.

Now in his fifties, Leon Errol was no longer being offered lead roles in major productions but had transformed into a sought after character player supplying comic relief throughout the storylines.

In 1934 he was signed by R.K.O. to star in a series of 2-reelers (usually as a philandering and henpecked husband). The shorts were enormously popular and in all there would be nearly ninety produced over the next two decades.

Errol also appeared in several features for the studio and one, The Girl from Mexico in 1939, became so successful it spawned a series, The Mexican Spitfire. Centred on the volatile character played by Lupe Velez, Leon was able to appear in two roles of each instalment … as the heroine’s affable Uncle Matt and his dimwitted look-a-like Lord Epping.

The plots ensured misunderstandings aplenty each time his Lordship was impersonated, and Errol’s physical antics became a major feature of the proceedings. Indeed, to moviegoers he was the real star of the pictures. (Rival studio Universal also capitalized on the pair’s popularity by signing them for the not-dissimilar Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga in 1941). After eight films R.K.O. ended the series in 1943 and a year later Lupe Velez committed suicide following a turbulent and troubled private life.

Leon continued making his popular 2-reelers and the occasional feature, appearing again with W.C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, in Higher and Higher with Frank Sinatra and Victor Borge and with Abbott and Costello in The Noose Hangs High. He could also be found in several low budget musicals, westerns and in one of the many sequels to The Invisible Man.

In 1946, “poverty row” studio Monogram decided to revive the cartoon strip character Joe Palooka in a series of B movies. Joe Kirkwood Jr. played the boxer and Leon appeared as his manager Knobby Walsh in eight pictures until 1950. Meanwhile R.K.O. decided to re-use some of Errol’s shorts by including them in several cheaply put together features they were releasing (Variety Time, Make Mine Laughs and Footlight Varieties). As it happened, they would be the last time Leon Errol would be seen in a full length motion picture.

By the early 1950s television was ripe for his popular short subject character to transfer to a weekly sitcom, but fate decreed otherwise. In October 1951, just three months after his 70th birthday, Leon Errol suffered a heart attack and died.

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